New from Cambridge University Press!

Sociolinguistics from the Periphery "presents a fascinating book about change: shifting political, economic and cultural conditions; ephemeral, sometimes even seasonal, multilingualism; and altered imaginaries for minority and indigenous languages and their users."

THE OBSERVATION DOESN'T ALWAYS STOP AT ONE GENERATION. NEIL SMITH, WHOSE''THE ACQUISITION OF PHONOLOGY'' (1973) WAS A STUDY OF HIS ELDEST'S SON'SPHONOLOGY, IS NOW STUDYING THAT SON'S ELDEST SON'S PHONOLOGY. AND MARILYNVIHMAN'S MUCH STUDIED DAUGHTER ALSO BECAME A LINGUIST, AND NOW STUDIES HEROWN DAUGHTER.

FINALLY, I MUST POINT YOU TO THE WORK OF DEB ROY, WHICH WAS DESCRIBED TO MEBY THE PERSON WHO REFERRED ME TO IT AS BOTH ''IMPRESSIVE'' AND ''A LITTLESCARY.'' FROM THE PROJECT WEB PAGE:

''ROY HAS BEGUN A PILOT PROJECT IN WHICH HE IS RECORDING HIS SON'SDEVELOPMENT AT HOME BY GATHERING APPROXIMATELY 10 HOURS OF HIGH FIDELITYAUDIO AND VIDEO ON A DAILY BASIS FROM BIRTH TO AGE THREE. THE RESULTINGCORPUS, WHICH ALREADY CONTAINS OVER 100,000 HOURS OF MULTI-TRACKRECORDINGS, CONSTITUTES THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE RECORD OF A CHILD'SDEVELOPMENT MADE TO DATE. THIS DATA PROVIDES MANY NEW OPPORTUNITIES TOUNDERSTAND THE FINE-GRAINED DYNAMICS OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT.''

CHECK OUT HIS TIME-LAPSE EVOLUTION OF THE WORD ''WATER.''HTTP://WWW.MEDIA.MIT.EDU/COGMAC/PROJECTS/HSP.HTML

I'M NOT SURE EXACTLY WHAT I'M GOINGTO DO WITH ALL THIS, BUT IF YOU HAVEANY THOUGHTS/ANECDOTES/EPIPHANIES YOU'D LIKE TO SHARE WITH ME, PLEASE DO!